Country institutional environments and international strategy: A review and analysis of the research

We review and analyze the growing body of literature that addresses the institutional context of international strategy. By examining articles in eleven major journals from January 2008 to July 2020, we identify six major categories of international strategies and implementation approaches: market entry and internationalization, political strategies, multinational technology and innovation, multinational corporate social responsibility, multinational headquarters and subsidiary relationships, and international human resources management. A parallel analysis of the relevant institutional variables categorizes institutions into eight types: economic institutions, political institutions, regulatory institutions, normative institutions, administrative institutions, cultural/cognitive institutions, demographic institutions, and knowledge institutions. These eight categories allow us to contextualize the institutional environment in which the six international strategies and implementation approaches are employed. Our review identifies important progress in international strategy research that has yielded a greater understanding of institutional impact on multinational activities. Yet, it also reveals that many areas of international strategy research remain fragmented, highlighting the need for future research and suggesting new directions for such investigations. Our analysis concludes by identifying knowledge gaps in each of the six strategy categories and making a series of suggestions for relevant future research.     

Internationalization of Digital Innovations: A Rapidly Evolving Research Stream

This perspective paper synthesizes the burgeoning literature on internationalization of digital innovations to identify promising areas for future research. We first integrate multiple perspectives on digital innovations to offer a coherent and unified definition of digital innovations. Next, we synthesize digital innovation research into a theoretical framework that discusses the interrelationship between digital innovations and international business environment and its implications for international penetration of digital innovations. Our synthesis of literature highlights the increased research focus on demand-side perspective as an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the unique dynamics of digital internationalization. Finally, we take account of recent trends in digital economy as well as important gaps in current literature to propose promising avenues for future research. We particularly emphasize the need to integrate current institutional transitions of a digital era as well as emerging theoretical perspectives such as demand-side perspective and opportunity logic in digital internationalization research. We hope our perspective paper will contribute toward a more systematic and theoretically grounded advancement of digital internationalization research.     

高层管理团队内部社会资本、团队冲突和决策效果的关系——研究综述与理论分析框架

反映在结构因素、关系因素和认知因素三个维度上的高管团队内部社会资本为决策信息的交换和共享提供了机会、意愿和能力,有利于团队内部形成建设性的冲突模式,促进决策效果的提高.本文以团队冲突为中介变量,建立了高管团队内部社会资本与决策效果的关系的理论框架,提出了研究命题,并对企业高管团队内部社会资本的培育提出建议.     

Amplifying a Relational Ethic: A Contribution to PRME Praxis

Western economically driven instrumental ethics fuel the dominant institutional logic in many business schools and are associated with the negative social and environmental situation widely linked to the mode of global development. Other ethical framings have been subordinated, marginalized, or denied. Through the explicit commitment of prominent international certifying bodies of management education, educators, researchers, and practitioners will be encouraged to give increasing effect to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The PRME is a United Nations‐led, institution‐level mechanism for reorienting the direction of business schools and for increasing both educator and student capacities to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable mode of development globally. We propose greater emphasis be given to various forms of relational ethics from which to guide the functional aspirations of institutions. We explore the creative opportunity for institutional change by contrasting the prevailing Western economically driven instrumental institutional logic with indigenous ethical framings. We draw upon Seo and Creed's conceptual framework of institutional change to discuss two films—Mann v. Ford and Waste = Food—to bring greater attention to the generative potential of indigenous perspectives in institutional praxis. Our examples could equally invite an application of other systems of relational ethics that have been overshadowed by the current domination of economic instrumentalism in almost all realms of decision making. We conclude by providing some teaching resources that can be used or adapted for geographical‐ or disciplinary‐specific attention to the issues we raise.     

Institutional voids and firms' resource commitment in emerging markets: A review and future research agenda

The impact of institutional environments on firms' strategic decisions has been examined in strategy and international business literature. Yet, the current state of knowledge about how institutional voids affect firms' resource commitment in emerging markets is equivocal. This paper reviews and develops an integrative framework that maps the key conceptualizations, theoretical frames, mechanisms, contingencies and outcomes in the institutional voids – resource commitment literature. Altogether, this paper structures institutional voids and resource commitment research into salient themes to help scholars scope the field and explore value-adding avenues to further our understanding of internationalization and resource commitment decisions in emerging markets.     

Corporate Political Activity: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

This paper reviews the diverse literature on corporate political activity (CPA) and develops a framework that details and integrates existing research in this field. A systematic analysis of extant CPA literatures is conducted to order them into domains that have implications for organizational performance. The paper is structured into three such domain emphases, which require further research investigation: resources and capabilities focus; institutional focus; and political environment focus. The contribution of each to an understanding of CPA in pursuit or defence of corporate competitive advantage is discussed. The authors also suggest that the internationalization of business, including the more recent emergence of developing country economies and companies, presents scholars with the challenge of understanding CPA in more varied institutional settings. CPA practices continue to expand as commerce goes increasingly global and, consequently, involves a wider array of political actors and institutions. The paper contributes by increasing the clarity of CPA classification, reflecting on the implications of a multi‐polar world for CPA research and advancing future agendas for scholars in this research community.     

Investigating Institutional,Economic and Social Determinants of European Regions for Firm Growth Through Employment Generation

This paper examines the influence of the institutional, economic and social characteristics of a region on firm growth through employment generation across 14 European countries for the time period 2010–2013. Theoretically, we utilize the resource‐based view alongside insights from institutional theory to develop a conceptual framework that captures the influence of regional characteristics on firm employment growth. Based on this framework, our empirical results indicate that not only does firm growth depend on the firm‐specific characteristics found in the literature, but regional attributes also significantly impact firm growth in a heterogeneous way for different firm types. In line with the heterogeneous nature of firm growth, our results point to significant differences in the influence of institutional, economic and social characteristics on firm growth in different‐sized groups and across different rates of growth distribution. The implications of our study suggest the importance of managers and policy‐makers realizing which firms are mostly expected to benefit from the external environment, and which in turn can be planned via tailored policy reform by regional governments and firm‐level strategy‐making by managers.     

The effect of informal and formal institutions on foreign market entry selection and performance

We investigate the impact of informal institutional distance and formal institutions on a key decision (namely location choice) of multinational enterprises (MNEs) when they expand abroad through foreign direct investment. The findings of the research that has analyzed these decisions have been non-conclusive, and this study aims to provide further theoretical and empirical evidence by considering the interaction effect of informal institutional distance and formal institutions in the location choice and its performance implications. Through an analysis of the internationalization of mobile telecommunications carriers, we demonstrate that formal institutions in a host country positively moderate the negative relationship between informal institutional distance and the likelihood of an MNE entering that country. Moreover, we find that those location choices that can be predicted through the institutional lens obtain higher performance than those entries that cannot be predicted through the interaction of informal and formal institutions.     

Collaboration and Internationalization of SMEs: Insights and Recommendations from a Systematic Review

This paper performs a systematic literature review of the undeniably diverse – and somewhat fragmented – current state of research on the collaborations and internationalization of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). We analyze key works and synthesize them into a framework that conceptually maps key antecedents, mediators, and moderators that influence the internationalization of SMEs. In addition, we highlight limitations of the literature, most notably in terms of theoretical fragmentation; extant theories are deployed and illustrated but rarely extended in a manner that significantly informs subsequent work. At an applied (but related) level, we argue the need for supplementary work that explores the distinct stages of internationalization – and the scope and scale of this process – rather than assuming closure around particular events. With this, we highlight the need for more rigorous and empirically informed explorations of contextual effects that take account of the consequences of developments in the global economic ecosystem.     

Understanding Business Process Management: Implications for Theory and Practice

This paper presents an empirically validated framework of business process management (BPM) to enable the pursuit of BPM theory. Phase 1 of the research focused on the development of an initial framework of BPM, derived from a synthesis of current literature. This comprised five key themes, subsequently categorized as ‘application components’ of BPM. The empirical validation of the framework was approached through case‐based research, utilizing semi‐structured interviews with managers of a large financial services organization, to explore the dimensions of the framework. The results suggest that, in addition to confirming the five ‘application components’ of the initial framework, three additional ‘conceptual components’ are important. These concepts differentiate BPM from other process management activities, and suggest that developing a prerequisite ‘process mindset’ is a fundamental component of a BPM approach.     

中国对外投资动因、制度调节与地区差异

通过整合制度观和资源观,将两者放在统一的分析框架中,考察中国企业如何利用母国制度优势克服竞争性资源占有方面的劣势,从而实现国际化战略目标。与传统思路分别分析各种内部资源和企业外部制度因素对于企业国际化的作用不同,运用调节变量的研究方法,分析母国制度因素对于资源与国际化关系的调节作用,利用2003年至2009年中国省级对外投资面板数据进行实证分析。研究结果表明,政府资源配置能力对于不同类型的资源与对外投资的关系确实起重要的调节作用,但调节的方向和强度不同,并受地区差异的影响,表明制度因素对对外投资的影响是有条件的。通过发现制度的调节作用,为中国企业为何在缺乏企业特别所有权优势的情况下仍然能够进行对外直接投资提供一个全新角度的解释。     

CONCEPTUAL LEVELS AND THE DESIGN OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS*

This article attempts to expand and clarify the discussions in the literature on complexity theory applied to accounting via two central assertions: (a) affecting the cognitive conceptual level of an individual through the financial reporting system can be accomplished not only by varying the immediate information load, but also, in the long run, by modifying the types of information and the mode of user-system interface. In other words, a properly designed accounting information system can have developmental cognitive effects in both the short and long run. (b) attempting to maximize the conceptual level of the decision maker is not always desirable. In certain types of environments, a high conceptual level actually impedes appropriate decision making. Therefore, the appropriate conceptual level must be related to the type of decision being made as well as to the type of decision maker.     

Accelerating the Innovation Process: A Systematic Review and Realist Synthesis of the Research Literature

There is continued interest among academics, practitioners and policy‐makers in methods to achieve accelerated innovation. Academic studies of this complex phenomenon have succeeded in reaching a high degree of consensus on the antecedents of innovation speed. The aim in this review is to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying management interventions to promote speed. The review adopts a theory‐led, realist synthesis of innovation speed research – the first example of this methodology in management studies. The authors develop a new time‐based framework for categorizing the innovation‐speed literature. The framework has a CIMO logic, and is built by invoking the organizational studies literature on time. The authors contextualize the innovation‐speed literature in relation to the three generic temporal challenges faced by all organizations: reducing temporal uncertainty; resolving temporal conflicts over activities; and allocating resources amid conditions of temporal scarcity. They problematize extant explanations of innovation speed as not taking account of different temporal orientations (temporal dichotomies) within innovation work, and thereby neglecting a potential barrier to achieving accelerated innovation outcomes. They further draw on the literature on time in organizations to suggest new avenues of research, and methodological approaches new to the study of innovation speed. The principal contribution of this review is to offer a new conceptual perspective on the complex empirical research examining how innovation projects may be accelerated from original idea to launch.     

Inter-organizational network structures in Russia: organizational changes from institutional and social embeddedness perspectives

Theory posits that organizations are embedded socially within their environment. The level of embeddedness depends highly on the environmental uncertainty a company and its network partners face. The latest research on transition economies indicates that the institutional framework in these countries is highly relevant for inter-organizational structures (i.e. formalization, standardization, frequency, intensity and reciprocity). As Russia constitutes a good example of high environmental uncertainty, a closer look at organizational changes in general and inter-organizational network structures in particular is taken. This paper extends the theoretical and empirical scope of social and economic theories on inter-organizational structures by formulating a conceptual framework that unites economic rationalism with socially embedded arguments. Contributing to emerging international HRD literature, the objective is to understand better the institutional influences on network structures and thus on organizational change. Moreover, it will be demonstrated how far organizational changes and human resource development is associated with institutional influences on network structures.     

Untangling the commonalities and differences between domestic cross-regional experience and international experience in shaping speed of internationalization

Prior studies have paid attention to the influence of domestic experience on internationalization, for which domestic experience primarily refers to the accumulation of internationalization knowledge from industrial peers or partners at home. We argue that the commonalities and differences between international experience and domestic cross-regional experience have not been fully incorporated in previous frameworks in the literature. Thus, in untangling the commonalities, we purposively differentiate domestic experience into two dimensions, i.e., repetition-based experience and diversity-based experience, to investigate the contingent role of making domestic cross-regional investments in shaping the relationship between international experience and the speed of internationalization. We expect that these two dimensions of domestic experience will moderate the relationship between international experience and the speed of internationalization in a different way. More specifically, repetition-based experience has a negative moderating effect while diversity-based experience has a positive moderating effect. Further, considering the differences between international investments and domestic investments, we expect that the joint impacts of international experience and domestic cross-regional experience on internationalization speed are contingent on whether firms have sufficient resources to support multiple learning or whether institutions between the home country and foreign country is similar enough for cross-context application. We expect that financial slack and institutional distance between prior foreign entries' country and the home country play significant three-way moderating roles in setting boundaries for the relationship between domestic experience and international experience. Based on the analysis of 302 Chinese publicly listed firms from 2001 to 2014, the dynamic panel data regression results support our hypotheses. Overall, our simultaneous consideration of commonalities and differences between domestic investments and international investments sheds light on how MNCs learn from both international and domestic investments to speed up their foreign expansions.     

Institutionalized norms of conducting research and social realities: A research synthesis of empirical works from 1983 to 2002

Based on a systematic review of the last 20 years of empirical research grounded in institutional theory, we identify some of the main norms of conducting research in this literature. The level of institutions, the formal/informal institutional pillars and the direction of effects are the foundation of these norms addressed by researchers in the last two decades. This review indicates that empirical research is well behind changes in social realities. This may be related to both the institutionalization process that takes place in any academic research and to the suggested difficulty that scholars find in moving away from widely accepted research models and practices, given the context within which they evolve. It is also concluded that local/national regulative institutions are giving up their position to more global normative and cognitive organizational field institutions. As the business environment become more global, giving more importance to transnational and informal institutions will be more crucial in institutional analysis of organizations.     

Crossing borders with social media: Online social networks and FDI

Social media is embedded in today's internationalization strategy. Companies extend their reach into foreign countries by posting and tweeting. Firms also enhance their mobile capabilities in foreign markets (e.g., knowledge and reputation) through user-generated content in online social networks. Levering on the capabilities-based theory of the multinational enterprise, this paper builds upon a resource-based, industry/network-based, and institution-based view framework. The study provides a comprehensive conceptual and empirical model to explain the effect of social networks on foreign direct investment. Empirical analysis in a global panel dataset of >4500 multinational enterprises suggests that online social networks' activity stimulates foreign capital expenditure and new affiliates. In addition, the article explores the relevance of customer capabilities along with sectoral and institutional moderating effects.     

A framework for optimizing managerial decision

There have been numerous attempts to analyze and formulate management problems within the general framework of Management Science and Operations Research, so as to help managers in their decision making problems. This paper focuses on the fundamental aspects of management decision making and introduces a conceptual framework in which problems of management and its different levels of functioning are systematically identified. Management problems are considered within two major categories: Enterprise and Operations problems. In spite of the difficulties in defining a clear-cut boundary between Enterprise and Operations problems, such a broad classification leads to three basic levels of management functioning, namely: Policy making, coordinating and implementation. The universal relationship among these three basic levels of functioning provides a basic functional element called the Management Triad. In contrast to classical higherarchial structure, triad structure provides a methodology to analyze relationships among different levels of management functions in terms of a given decision problem. It is demonstrated that for different decision making problems individuals can shift from one end of the triad to another and perform a different management function.A quantitative approach has been introduced for operations management decision making by adapting Shewhart's control chart philosophy which in turn provides for quasi-automated decisions for corrective action and also for filtering significant signals of change to appropriate management functioning levels.     

Internationalization of Emerging Economy SMEs: A Tripod Approach

Research suggests that internationalizing SMEs in the West enjoy far greater institutional support. There is, however, little understanding of the internationalization processes of emerging economies' SMEs (EESMEs) and yet they are notable contenders in international trade. Accordingly, this research draws from an integrated strategy tripod framework to develop new perspectives accounting for how Iranian-based EESMEs internationalize and compete in international markets. A comprehensive analysis of Iranian EESMEs' survey data revealed that, other than their owner's managerial perceptions of their industry, firm, and institutional constraints, international market knowledge (IMK) significantly moderated their internationalization strategies. Such understanding advances research on firm internationalization by pinpointing the central role of IMK in forming internationalization strategies by EESMEs in hard-to-reach contexts, which has implications for academic research and policy-making, leading to needed reform based on theory and practice.     

Engaging institutions in global careers: highly skilled self-initiated expatriates’ journeys through a Nordic welfare state

Recent years of research have highlighted the phenomenon of self-initiated expatriation and clarified the individual agency that underlies it, such as its motivational drivers, thereby depicting it as one form of boundaryless career. Yet as a consequence the role of wider institutional and structural contexts has been left under-theorized. This article provides a much needed examination of the interaction between institutional contexts and agency in self-initiated global careers. It advances the understanding of how self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) are influenced by and engage institutions in constructing their global mobility and careers. The research is a field-based study of SIEs’ encounters with the institutions of a Nordic welfare state and consists of interviews, observations, and document analyses. It makes a relevant addition to understanding how the self-directed expatriation of highly skilled professionals is institutionally moderated. It expands knowledge by showing how SIEs engage and potentially aim to influence public institutions and discourses to further their global mobility and work experiences and by providing a differentiated and distributed view of agency in self-initiated expatriation. While institutional environments condition global mobility and work experiences, they are potentially also influenced by the global talent that flows through them.